COST OF LIVING - WARLIKE

CDR, http://www.loveearthmusic.com/ 

Love Earth Music used to be from all over the place, but now Steve Davis - the leading man behind the +DOG+ project - is located in Sudbury, Massachusetts. When I found out about that, my interest was triggered. I have a weakness for the New England Noise scene. Many connections were made in the few years I played Rhode Island Noise Fest, and most of them I still cherish. But in all honesty, there is only one of their releases in my collection out of the almost gazillion they did (En Nihil - The Absolute). So there is no time like the present to dive into these.

The fourth and final release in my stash is "Warlike" by Cost of Living. No info whatsoever, but it was Cam, Sam and Cave with additional guitars by Steve on their previous release. And yes, this album is good. It could be perfected production-wise, but I'm afraid it would lose its charms. So why do I like this album, you ask? Well, because it has absolutely no style, and because of that, it's a style of its own. The tracks range from heavily death ambient inspired pieces ("Godeater") to harsh noise ("Recognize"), to black metal ("Committed To The Flame") to even some old-school industrial ("How They Kill", "Buried / The Rise / The Fall"). Yet even with all these different styles, the album is clearly the output of one project. The vocals are in the same style and have the same treatment on all the tracks. The palette of sounds is recognizable throughout the CD. It's also an overview of several different types of noise, so if you want to try out a few, this is as good a starting point as it gets. 

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